1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a catalog taxonomy and systems and methods for storing product information in a catalog. In particular, the present invention is directed to a catalog taxonomy in which product categories and subcategories are organized in multiple tiers, and a system a method that utilizes such catalog taxonomy.
2. Description of Related Art
Various on-line services and merchants provide on-line catalogs that allow users to obtain information regarding many different types of products and/or purchase these from various different product categories. For example, on-line merchants such as www.amazon.com™ provide various tabs for categories of products in their catalog including tabs for books, apparel, electronics, etc. Upon selection of one of these tabs representing a category, a listing of plurality of subcategories is generated for selection by the user. Upon selection of a subcategory, further subcategories or plurality of products are displayed so that the user can again, select the desired subcategory to display the products of the subcategory, or select the desired product to obtain information and/or purchase the desired product.
Websites such as www.cnet.com™ and www.mysimon.com™ that provide users with product information and reviews, as well as www.yahoo.com™ which is a search site, provide links to catalogs that allow users to shop for products from a various on-line merchants that sell the desired product. Upon selection of an appropriate shopping link, these websites typically display a catalog with a plurality of product categories to allow the user to select a desired category of products. The user interface of the catalog then functions in a similar manner to the interface provided by on-line merchants such as described above. In particular, upon selection of a category, a plurality of subcategories are displayed to allow the user to select the desired subcategory of products. Upon selection of a subcategory, further subcategories or plurality of products are displayed so that the user can select the desired subcategory, or select the desired product.
The above described catalogs have user interfaces with ontological structures as described in which a plurality of product subcategories branch from parent product categories or parent subcategories so that the catalogs also have a tree-like configuration. Such ontological structure of user interfaces for catalogs is desirable to enhance the experience of the user so that the user can quickly and easily navigate through the catalog and identify the desired product. Such ease of use is very important because many different categories of products from many different manufacturers are generally made available to the users by on-line merchants and services.
In particular, on-line services and merchants typically offer various types of products within a given category of products, each group of products targeting a particular group of users and/or meeting the specific needs of a market segment. As previously described, to allow proper organization of products, various subcategories of products are provided for a particular category. For example, in the product category of computing devices, various subcategories may include PDAs, personal computers, or enterprise servers. In the subcategory of personal computers, the computing device may also include the subcategories of desktop and notebook computers, etc. Similarly, in the product category of vacuum cleaners, categories may include whether the vacuum cleaner is upright, canister or handheld. In the subcategory of upright vacuums, additional subcategories may be provided such as bag/bagless operation, with/without exhaust filtration, self-propelled or not, etc.
As described above, the tree-like ontological structures that have plurality of product subcategories branching from parent product categories or parent subcategories are well suited for user providing interfaces of catalogs. On-line merchants as well as other on-line services typically utilize a catalog taxonomy structure that is similarly organized in a tree-like configuration to organize the actual product information that is displayed or rendered in accordance with the tree-like ontological structure of the catalog.
The distinction between the terms “taxonomy” and “ontology” (and variations thereof) as used herein should be clearly understood. Taxonomy as referred to herein can be thought of as a set of relations among categories. Taxonomy may be representable as an acyclic graph, for example, a “tree” graph, such that every relation is “a kind of” relation (i.e. categories are related), and that for every such relation, there is a set of attributes, jointly necessary and individually sufficient for a product to genuinely be “a kind of” product to which that node in the taxonomy refers. Of course, there can also be non-essential or optional attributes as well. Taxonomy does not allow multiple inheritance so that the graph representing the taxonomy cannot be cyclic.
In contrast, ontology as referred to herein may be thought of as a set of relations representable by either an acyclic or cyclic graph, which may or may not mirror (either partly or completely) an underlying taxonomy. Rather than being limited to the conditions of taxonomy described above, ontology may group products together which merely share an affinity, are associated with the same lifestyle, occasion or purpose, etc. In this sense ontologies are used primarily for “navigation” of an “information space” or for “browsing”, etc., rather than for strict functional or material classification of products. The items in every node of a well-formed ontology will indeed share certain attributes. However, these attributes are not required to be internal, material properties to the products themselves. They can be secondary properties such as “styled to appeal to youths” or “products on clearance sale.”
FIG. 1 shows a schematic illustration of an example conventional catalog taxonomy structure 100 that is organized in a tree-like manner with plurality of product subcategories branching from parent product categories or parent subcategories. As shown, a plurality of 1st Tier Categories 104 are provided in the catalog taxonomy structure, each of the plurality of 1st Tier Categories 104 having a plurality of 2nd Tier categories 108 branching therefrom. The 1st Tier Categories 104 may be any appropriate categories of products or services. For example, 1st Tier Category 2 may be the category of Computing Devices as shown, while the 1st Tier Category 1 may be for audio/video electronics and the 1st Tier Category 3 may be for household electronics.
A plurality of product 2nd Tier Categories 108 branching from the 1st Tier Categories 104 may be any appropriate subcategories thereof. For example, in the illustrated conventional catalog taxonomy structure 100, various subcategories branching from the 1st Tier Category 2 for Computing Devices may include the 2nd Tier Category 1 for PDAs, 2nd Tier Category 2 for PCs, and 2nd Tier Category 3 for Servers.
Various products 110 branch from the 2nd Tier Categories 108 that are the final or last subcategories in this example. For example, in the illustration of FIG. 1, the 2nd Tier Category 1 for PDAs is a final subcategory so that a plurality of products 110 which are various models of PDAs branch therefrom. Similarly, the 2nd Tier Category 3 for Servers is a final subcategory so that a plurality of products 110 which are various models of Servers branch therefrom.
Referring again to the conventional catalog taxonomy structure of FIG. 1, 3rd Tier Categories 114 branch from the 2nd Tier Category 2 for PCs. In particular, the 3rd Tier Category 1 for Desktops, and the 3rd Tier Category 2 for Notebooks, both branch from the 2nd Tier Category 2 for PCs. These 3rd Tier Categories for Desktops and Notebooks are the final subcategories in this example. Consequently, a plurality of products 116 branch from these 3rd Tier Categories as shown, these products being desktops and notebooks.
In the commonly used catalog taxonomy structure, attributes of the products such as its characteristic features, are associated with the final (last) subcategory. Thus, the various parent categories and parent subcategories of the catalog taxonomy merely provide an organizational structure for organizing product information and do not have any associated attributes themselves Thus, in the catalog taxonomy structure 100, product information of the various products classified under the 1st Tier category 2 for Computing Devices are all associated with the final subcategory.
For instance, for the 2nd Tier Category 1 for PDAs which is a final subcategory, various attributes of PDAs are associated with the subcategory. In particular the attributes of physical size of PDAs such as height, width, depth, and weight, as well as input/output attributes such as keyboard, viewscreen, touchscreen, mini-keyboard, and handwriting recognition, are all associated with the 2nd Tier Category 1 for PDAs. Similarly, various attributes including the physical size attributes (height, width, depth, and weight), the input attributes (keyboard), and storage attributes such as hard drive, floppy, CD and/or DVD are also associated with the 2nd Tier Category 3 which is also a final subcategory.
Furthermore, with respect to the 3rd Tier Category 1 for Desktops and 3rd Tier Category 2 for Notebooks that branch from the 2nd Tier Category 2 for PCs, various attributes are associated with these subcategories as well. As shown in FIG. 1, the 3rd Tier Category 1 for Desktops is associated with physical attributes (height, width, depth, weight), input/output attributes (keyboard, viewscreen), storage attributes (hard drive, floppy, CD/DVD), and form factor attributes such as horizontal, tower, and mini-tower form factors. Similarly, the 3rd Tier Category 2 for Notebooks has various associated attributes including physical attributes (height, width, depth, weight), input/output attributes (keyboard, viewscreen, pointing stick, touchpad), and storage attributes (hard drive, floppy, CD/DVD).
Hence, in the illustrated example of product category for computing devices, various attributes of products are associated with the final subcategory in the conventional catalog taxonomy structure 100 shown. As previously noted, various other categories and subcategories merely provide a catalog taxonomy structure for organizing product information, and do not have any associated attributes in and of themselves.
The disadvantage of the above noted conventional catalog taxonomy structure 100 shown in FIG. 1 is that it requires significant hardware and processing resources due to the repetitive association of the same attributes for numerous final subcategories. As can be seen by careful examination of the attributes associated with the final subcategories in conventional catalog taxonomy structure 100, many attributes are the same for the various final subcategories. For instance, the 2nd Tier Category 1 for PDAs, the 2nd Tier Category for Servers, the 3rd Tier Category for Desktops, and the 3rd Tier Category for Notebooks all have physical attributes and input/output attributes associated therewith.
Moreover, such a catalog taxonomy structure further does not allow easy modification of the catalog ontology which is the structure and manner in which the catalog is rendered and displayed to the users of the catalog. For instance, in order to provide another final subcategory, each of the attributes of the products in the final subcategory must be again associated with the final subcategory.
There is no one right way to classify products, and the pitfall of many systems is that they become anchored to one way of classifying products. This presents a dilemma because taxonomy systems that attempt to allow multiple ontologies are often not normalized, not unified, not navigable, or not maintainable. In this regard, some shopping websites have comparable products splintered apart from each other in different nodes of the ontology because they merged disparate ontologies together. For example, in e-commerce sites, consumers can find different models of the same kind of products such as 20 different models handheld TVs. However, these products are not found in the same location in the catalog's ontology. Some of the products may be found in “TVs|Handhelds” category/subcategory, some of the products may be found in “Handheld electronics|TVs” category/subcategory, and some in both.
The present inventors have found that this may occur because the e-commerce sites obtain product data from different data sources that have different taxonomy structures, and the e-commerce sites attempted to merge and map them together, with limited success. The deficiency results from mapping the taxonomies to each other at the node level, having no reference to the attributes, or from mapping and merging taxonomies, one ore more of which were not built originally with strict taxonomical inheritance defined.
Therefore, there is an unfulfilled need for a catalog taxonomy structure, system and method that minimizes hardware and processing resources. In addition, there also exists an unfulfilled need for such a catalog taxonomy structure, system and method that allows easy modification of the catalog ontology. Furthermore, there still exists a need for a catalog taxonomy structure, system and method that facilitates attribute based queries to identify products having a particular attribute, and facilitates intelligent merging of multiple taxonomies upon the basis of the associated attributes.